GOD’S RENEWAL AND ENLARGEMENT OF HIS PROMISES.

(1) Now shalt thou see.—Moses’ complaint was that God delayed, and “was slack as concerning His promise.” Hitherto He had not “delivered His people at all.” The answer,”Now shalt thou see,” is an assurance that there will be no more delay; the work is just about to begin, and Moses will behold it. He will then cease to doubt.

With a strong hand shall he let them go.—Rather, through a strong hand: i.e., through the compulsion which my strong hand will exert on him,

Drive them.—Comp. Exodus 12:31-33.

By my name Jehovah was I not known to them.—Rather, was I not made manifest to them. The antiquity of the name itself appears—(1) from its derivation, which is from the obsolete havah, a form already in the time of Moses superseded by hayah; (2) from its occurrence in some of the most ancient documents inserted by Moses into the Book of Genesis, e.g., Exodus 2:4; Exodus 2:3-4; Exodus 11:1-9, &c.; (3) from its employment by Abraham as an element in a name (Genesis 22:14). But though the name was ancient, and known to the patriarchs, its full meaning was not known to them, and so God was not manifested to them by it.

The land of Canaan.—Canaan proper was the tract between Sidon and Gaza (Genesis 10:19), which is now counted as “Palestine “; but the region promised to Abraham, and included in a larger sense of the word “Canaan,” was very much more extensive, reaching as it did from the Nile to the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18). This vast territory was actually possessed by Israel under David and Solomon (1Kings 4:21-24).

The land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.—Heb., The land of their sojournings, wherein they sojourned. (Comp. Genesis 17:8; Genesis 23:4; Genesis 28:4.) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were occupants of Canaan merely by sufferance: they were allowed to dwell in it because it was not half peopled; but the ownership was recognised as belonging to the Canaanite nations, Hittites and others (Genesis 20:15; Genesis 23:3-20, &c).

With a stretched out arm.—See the comment on Exodus 3:20.

Witn great judgments. – That the “wonders” to be performed would also be “judgments” is here first declared plainly, though previously hinted at (Exodus 3:20; Exodus 4:23). In Genesis God had said that he would “judge” the nation which should afflict Israel (Genesis 15:14), but not that he would do so miraculously.

I will be to you a God.—See Genesis 17:8.

Anguish of spirit.—Heb., shortness of breath. (Comp. Job 21:4.) The expression points to extreme lassitude and depression.

(11) Speak unto Pharaoh.—The second message was an advance upon the first. The first asked only for permission to enter the wilderness, much of which was within the limits of Egypt; the second was a demand that the Israelites should be allowed “to go out of the land.” Such is the way of Providence generally. If we refuse a light cross, a heavier cross is laid on us. If we will not close with the Sybil on the first occasion, she offers us a worse bargain on the second.

Uncircumcised lips.—Rosenmüller argues from this expression that Moses was “tongue-tied;” but it is not clear that more is meant here than in Exodus 4:10, where Moses says that Hebrews 13 “slow of speech and of a slow tongue.” He had some difficulty of utterance; but whether or not it was a physical impediment remains uncertain. “Uncircumcised” is used, according to the Hebrew idiom, for any imperfection which interferes with efficiency. An “uncircumcised ear,” is explained in Jeremiah 6 to be an ear that “cannot hearken;” and an “uncircumcised heart: (Lev. xxvi 41) is a heart that fails to understand.

(14) These be the heads of their fathers’ houses.—Genealogies have always had a special interest for the Semitic races. They occupy quite as prominent a position in Arabian as in Jewish history. The descent of a man who aspired to be a leader would be a subject of curiosity, with a Semitic people, to all those who submitted themselves to his guidance; and Moses naturally inserts his at the point where, fully accepting the post of leader, he came forward and commenced his struggle with Pharaoh for the emancipation of his nation. A “father’s house” is a family. (See Numbers 1:2; Numbers 1:18.)

(14, 15) Reuben . . . Simeon.—It fixes the position of the family of Levi in the house of Jacob to commence the genealogy with a mention of the two elder brothers. As, however, the writer is really concerned only with the Levites, the families of Reuben and Simeon are dismissed with the briefest possible notice. Nothing new is rocorded of them. (See Genesis 46:9-10.)

(17) The sons of Gershon.—From this point the genealogy is no longer a recapitulation, but an original historical document of first-rate importance, which is confirmed by Numbers (Numbers 3:18-33) and Chronicles (1Chronicles 6:17-19). It is remarkable that Gershon had but two sons, Kohath but four, and Merari but two. Yet the Levites in the year after the Exodus numbered 22,300 males (Numbers 3:22; Numbers 3:28; Numbers 3:34). This increase could only have taken place, at the rate indicated, in the course of some ten or eleven generations.

The years of the life of Amram.—The long lives of Levi, Kohath, and Amram, the father of Moses, are not recorded for any chronological purpose, but to show that the blessing of God rested in an especial way on the house of Levi, even before it became the priestly tribe. Life in Egypt at the time not unfrequently reached 120 years; but the 137 of Levi, the 133 of Kohath, and the 137 of Amram, the father of Moses, would, even in Egypt, have been abnormal.